Loving Him
by KNJB
Summary: A three part story told from three points of view. The end of their fifth year. Hr/R
1. Loving Him

Authors Note: I don't own any of the characters or the concept of the Harry Potter world. I am just borrowing them from JK Rowling, who is kind enough to let us use them.  
  
This is my first story in the HP world and any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.  
  
Loving Him  
  
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I never believed in love when I was younger. While other girls were out playing house and getting "married" in the play yard, I was playing dentist with whoever I had bullied into patient-hood that day. I never had baby dolls, instead preferring that my parents buy me books to spend time with. I didn't dream of being a princess or a ballerina with hundreds of suitors mad for my love. I dreamed of being Prime Minister or of becoming a rocket scientist.  
  
It didn't go away as I got older. As the boys and girls of Hogwarts discovered each other and the many joys of raging hormones, I studied. I worked harder, longer, and more passionately then anyone else so that I could accomplish my goals and make a name for myself, and I thought that girls like Lavender and Parvati who go mad every time they see a boy were the most ignorant, superficial people I knew.  
  
That all changed during my fifth year.  
  
I took the O.W.Ls, I dealt with death and grief for the first time, and I learned that there was a great chance that one day my best friend would be killed by the most evil and almost-most powerful wizard alive. I fell in love with my best friend.  
  
I hadn't planned on it, naturally. How does one plan on doing something they didn't believe in? I'm not sure I can pin-point when I realized it, but I can say with certainty when it happened: Ron and I were walking back to the common room on the last day of term, talking about something inconsequential to keep our minds from all the heaviness weighing on our shoulders. Dumbledore's announcement had set a pall over the school, and it was our last night of duty as Prefects for the year. I suppose he must have been chattering on about Quidditch-when doesn't he, really?-and I was listening politely, like I always do. Just before we were in sight of the Fat Lady, he stopped and turned to me, his eyes soft, his voice low with an emotion I couldn't identify. Years of ignoring passion and romance had left me painfully ignorant.  
  
"You know, Mione, I'm here for you if you need me."  
  
Then he reached out and touched my hand gently, caressingly rubbing his thumb against the smooth skin of the back of my hand, the calluses on his fingers in sharp contrast to myself. I thought for a breath-stopping moment he had more to say, but instead he leaned forward and brushed his lips tenderly against my forehead, a gesture that could be called brotherly if not for the look in his eyes.  
  
I felt my heart plummet then rise again, beating faster and faster until I was sure I would wake the whole castle with my heartbeat. My whole body was infused with a wave of pleasure, which tingled from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I felt dizzy and disoriented, like I had never felt before, and through it all I stood there calmly, nodding automatically as his hand slipped from mine and we resumed our walk back to the common room.  
  
A day, maybe two days later I realized-or rather, admitted to myself-what it all meant. Nothing could make me feel like that, so wildly terrified and yet fiercely sure of myself then the only emotion that I had denied existence for so long. I loved him, painfully, awkwardly, but truly, and I was absolutely terrified. I had read almost every book in the library of Hogwarts (no small feat), and received top marks on every exam I've ever taken, but knew absolutely nothing about how I was supposed to behave now.  
  
So I stayed quiet, observant. I watched the way the sunlight flickered against his hair, turning the ginger to a warm russet, the color of autumn leaves at the peak of their beauty. I watched the way his deep blue eyes lit up when he became excited, arguing with Harry over a Quidditch strategy. I followed the motions of his hands with my eyes when he demonstrated something to me, their deft quickness belying years of practices in his back yard with his brothers, his hands as reflexive and swift as hummingbirds. And I listened, letting his voice wash over me with its deep warmth, filling my ears to the brim with his words and laughter, drinking him in, knowing I would never have my fill of him. I would never want to, to be honest.  
  
I can feel the other Hermione, the one who is useless and obsolete now but still lay buried inside me along with other old memories, mocking me from time to time, calling me foolish for thinking that love was real and for falling into the same trap every other teenager falls into. She teases me for being helpless to emotion, but I ignore her. Let her go play dentist and never feel. Myself, I could sit here for the rest of my life and just watch him talk about broomsticks and never, not for a single fleeting moment, feel an ounce of regret. 


	2. Watching

Authors Note: I was inspired last night and wrote a companion piece to my first fic, "Loving Him" This is from Ron's point of view about Hermione. Once again, I own nothing except my love for the series.  
  
Watching  
  
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She has the warmest, most brilliant eyes I have ever seen. When she looks at you, you feel like she is memorizing your soul, storing you up in that vast brain of hers for further analyzation. When she looks at me like that, penetrating, I find myself not minding that I feel stripped to the bone, that she hasn't missed a single nuance. I want her to keep looking at me, to have her analyze me forever. Anything so long as she'd be seeing me.  
  
I was -am- just like every teenage boy. Girls make me go mad, their hair and their eyes and their smell. If you You-Know-Who was a pretty girl instead of a scary snake-man, the whole wizarding world would be doomed because Harry and I would be too busy trying to get her number then stop her from taking over the world. I'm no stranger to the way women make me feel, but she.she doesn't do it right.  
  
Hermione would be livid if she knew she had finally failed at something. She simply could not cause the same reaction in me that Parvati's short skirts did. No, it went much deeper the silly lust.  
  
When she looked at me, I found myself sitting taller, praying for a clean face and smooth hair. I wanted to pass her inspection, to win her admiration and approval.  
  
God, I'm so full of it. Admiration and approval? That's what I want from the crowd at Quidditch matches. With Hermione, I wanted something much more valuable, much harder to get, much less fleeting: I want her to love me. Realistically, I knew this is impossible. She's the smartest girl at Hogwarts, possibly the smartest girl in England, and beautiful and kind and witty. She's too good for me -she should be with someone like (God forbid) Harry, who is equally perfect and gifted. I know there's no way a person of her caliber would ever lower herself for someone like me, an average looking, academically casual, moderately competent Quidditch player covered in a mass of ugly freckles and topped off with a mop of unruly hair second only to Harry's.  
  
I know all this, but I still love her.  
  
Despite my faults, despite her lack of faults, I still find myself watching her. I watch her calm face, her quietly expressive eyes while she listens to me blather and watches me gesticulate like a fool. I watch her read while Harry and I pursue trivial pursuits, her quiet brilliance putting our immature, childishness to shame. And every so often, when the timing's right and my courage is with me, I touch her. Gentle, seemingly inconsequential touches of her skin, her face, her hair. Touches I can, if interrogated, pass off for brotherly or platonic. I never risk too much with her, afraid she'll discover my game and I'll be doomed to spending the rest of my life begging after her for the merest glimpse.  
  
Sometimes though, I slip up, allow myself to risk my fragile standing. Like that night in the hall, the final night of term after a hellish school year. I was overcome by feelings of finality, and she looked so vulnerable and frightened that all I wanted to do for the rest of my life was keep her from feeling sadness.  
  
"You know, Mione, I'm here for you if you need me."  
  
I whispered to her, a yard away from the common room and our grieving best friend, miles away from any hope of her ever needing me.  
  
I took her hand briefly, watching her nod, and for a fleeting moment thought I would kiss her. I thought I might be brave enough, smooth enough to kiss her, but then my lips were on her forehead and we were back to where we always were: her blissfully unaware of my feelings, me too frustratingly aware to stand.  
  
I know that she's above me. I know it's ridiculous of me to act like I have the right to steal surreptitious touches and snatches of her voice. I know that she could never see me the way I see her (flawless, loving.) I know I am living in futility with no hope of escape or redemption.  
  
I know this, and still, everyday, I hope. I tug her hair gently to entangle my fingers in its wild curl. I act goofy and ridiculous so that I can here her silvery laughter. I watch her, and I love her. And I hope. Every day. 


	3. Carry On

Authors note: This is the last piece in the "Loving Him" trilogy. It was supposed to be a stand-alone fic, but inspiration and great reviews spurred me to bring some closure. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed my stories, because it made me feel great and you were all so kind. I hope you enjoy this last part.  
  
Again, I own nothing.  
  
Carry On  
  
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To say that they were unobservant would be the understatement of the decade. Hermione, though the smartest girl probably ever to attend Hogwarts, still thought she was pining unrequitedly for Ron, and Ron, well never the swiftest broom in the shed, still missed everything that was obvious to everyone else. The way the look at each other, the fleeting touches each think is surreptitious and very sneaky of them. Neither sees what I see when they're together, that glow that infuses them, the palpable longing. Sometimes it's just too much for one person to handle.  
  
At first it made me uncomfortable, seeing my best friends looking at each other in a way that can only be called "gazing," feeling their intense passion. It took awhile to sit properly with me.after all, it was Hermione, the girl who had bossed us around mercilessly since first year, and RON, my lanky best friend who was about as smooth with the ladies as Colin Creevey. And then suddenly, they weren't.  
  
Through Ron I saw how beautiful Hermione had become, how my memories of a younger, more awkward version of her had blocked out how she had grown, and grown up. How things that had seemed over large on her, or too wild, or just plain awkward had somehow fit themselves together into a very nice picture. Then I reached a whole new level of discomfort, because Hermione wasn't just the bossy girl who ordered us around.she was a woman with thoughts and feelings and, most awkwardly, desires.  
  
Although Ron didn't look particularly handsome to me, even after how Hermione saw him changed, I could see where he was different. Where he had once been bumbling he now had a kind of rough grace that enabled him to walk without stumbling all over the place or banging his head on anything. His hair, while still unruly and unwilling to be tamed like mine, somehow seemed to fit him a lot better now, something that he had grown into like Hermione.  
  
Through them I had let go of who they used to be to me and come to accept how they were now. And then I began to hope for them, that they would see through each other's terrible fronts, realize that they weren't alone, and find some solace in each other.  
  
I won't admit it to them, but part of the reason is because I know that there's a good chance I won't come out of this alive. There's a chance Voldemort will win, 50/50 odds on both of us, and if they have each other they can have the power to defeat him together to keep the world safe for everyone else even though I failed.  
  
That, and I want them to be happy. Who can say they don't want this for their friends? I want them to be safe, and happy, and able to carry on if anything happens to me. They're going to have to be the ones to figure it out, though.  
  
***  
  
Hermione watched as Harry drifted off into his thoughts, staring out the train window as the scarlet engine of the Hogwarts Express slowly rocked them all into reverie. She knew that they were never going to be the same after this year; love and death had invaded their lives and they were forever changed because of it. She bit her lip as she continued to stare at him, saying a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that he'd find solace in something.or someone. Anything so that he could smile again.  
  
She heard a noise to her right and turned her head in time to see Ron stir and wake, opening his eyes in a squint against the harsh light of the compartment, bright against the angry gray of the windows. She watched as he sat up and sheepishly wiped his lips with the back of his wrist, rubbing the sleep away from his face. In this moment she felt more connected to him then she ever had before, like the invisible thread that linked them together had become a rope while she hadn't been paying attention, and she felt their lives inextricably link from that moment on. She watched as his eyes searched her face for confirmation, for anything, then their eyes met and held in silence.  
  
The compartment swayed gently, Harry slipped into a dreamless sleep, the rain pounded at the window, somewhere out in the hall a student yelled for her friend's attention. Ron's hand sought Hermione's in the world that had narrowed to include no one but them.  
  
And they knew. 


End file.
